Friday, June 29, 2012

This morning, NPR's Yuki Noguchi wanted to know how an ordinary small business owner feels now that the Obama health care law has been upheld. So she turned to this guy:

The law will give some small businesses tax incentives to pay for employee health care. Starting in 2014, those with 50 or more employees will be required to provide it.

That requirement is bad news for businesses like Perfect Printing in Moorestown, N.J. The company's president and CEO, Joe Olivo, says he now has 48 employees, for whom he pays some health care coverage.

But he's intensely aware of crossing that 50-person threshold and will think very hard before hiring more people so he can avoid hitting government requirements that he says will raise his health care costs.

Last night, Anne Thompson of NBC News wanted to know the same thing. So she turned to ... the same guy:

ANNE THOMPSON: For small business owners like Joe Olivo, it is the unknown cost of the law that could impact his printing business....

Olivo offers health care to his 48 workers. If he goes to 50, he says the law would require him to provide more comprehensive and expensive care or pay a penalty. He says the penalty makes more sense.

JOE OLIVO: The penalty is far below my premiums. It'll be cheaper for me to allow the employees to go and purchase insurance on the exchange by themselves.

Wow -- two news organizations covering the same story scoured the nation for a random small business owner to comment on that story -- and they both found the same one! How'd that happen? What are the odds?

Well, as it turns out, Joe Olivo of Perfect Printing turns up quite a bit in public discussions of this and other issues. Here he is testifying against the health care law before House and Senate committees in January 2011. Here he is on the Fox Business Network around the same time, discussing the same subject. Here he is a few days ago, also on Fox Business, talking to John Stossel about the law. Here he is discussing the same subject on a New Jersey Fox affiliate.

And here he is in July 2010 discussing small business hiring with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. Here he is opposing an increase in the minimum wage in an MSNBC debate a couple of weeks ago.

Go to many of these links and you find out something about Joe Olivo that NPR and NBC didn't tell you: he's a member of the National Federation of Independent Business. NFIB's site and YouTube page promote many of Olivo's public appearances. He was the subject of an NFIB "My Voice in Washington" online video in 2011.

NFIB, you will not be surprised to learn, is linked to the ALEC and Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, and to the usual rogues' gallery of right-wing zillionaires.

So Joe Olivo isn't just some random business owner -- he's dispatched by NFIB whenever there's a need for someone to play a random small business owner on TV.

Thanks, NPR and NBC -- you asked us to smell the grass, and you didn't even notice it was Astroturf. Or you noticed, but you didn't want us to.

14 comments:

Yes, EVERY small business owner will stop at 48-49 employees to prevent having to pay some small portion of their health care, which the government will largely subsidize, because expanding to 50, 60, or a 100, employees will be too expensive, and they'll forgo making millions of dollars in profits for their business, to make their point.

Now, mind you, you'll be able to find some out there who are willing to shoot off their nose, eyes, and ears, to spite their faces.

Something tells me, if there's money to be made, this asshole won't be one of them. He's just a glory-hound and media-whore.

And you've just seen another example of the further FOXification of NPR and MSNBC.

It's time to make a list of these clowns. I know that Olivo's not the first person whose conservative and/or business lobby ties our allegedly-liberal media doesn't disclose when choosing to use him or her as their "average person without an agenda" soundbite provider.

You vile, lazy blogger! How dare you take the 10 minutes to check my sources and reorient my framing!

/"journalist"

I posted on NPR's comment thread that both Yuki and her editor were lazier than pot-smoking sloths for not catching this and noting it. But considering that journalists consider it their calling to repeat what PR flacks tell them, I don't think it will resonate.

Nice Polite Republican radio depends on local business for much of its support, check who is working their pledge drives. FAIR.org has studies going back years documenting NPR and PBS number of guests bias and it ain't liberal. They are reliably socially moderate and economically conservative media outlets.

NPR has been on my "ignore for serious news" list for several years now. their propensity for broadcasting pre-digested party line pablum has been in evidence for some time. it has always struck me how ironic it is that right wing zealots call for de-funding public radio when the corporate underwriters couldn't have a better forum for their conservative views aired.

Nice article, Every starting a business we need an employees to do the work. EVERY small business owner will stop at less than 50 employees to prevent having to pay some small portion of their health care, which the government will largely subsidize, because expanding greater than 50 employees will be too expensive, and they'll abandon making millions of dollars in profits for their business, to make their point. I know that, Olivo's not the first person whose traditional and business entrance hall ties our allegedly-liberal media doesn't disclose when choosing to use him or her as their "average person without an agenda" soundbite provider. Business Report

NPR has been on my "ignore for serious news" list for several years now. their propensity for broadcasting pre-digested party line pablum has been in evidence for some time. it has always struck me how ironic it is that right wing zealots call for de-funding public radio when the corporate underwriters couldn't have a better forum for their conservative views aired. James